Another fire whip lashes across her back. Pain – the feeling of burning and ripping skin makes tears bubble at her eyes and she squeezes them closed. Katara will not cry in front of them. She will not cry here. Behind her, she hears the movement of the Fire Nation soldier and her back tenses automatically just as another lash tears across her copper colored skin.
She bites her tongue to hold back the screams. The faint taste of blood fills her mouth just before her body heals itself and the wound is sealed.
"Tell us where the Avatar is," Zhao's disgustingly false sweet voice fills her ear and she opens her eyes. He's standing in front of her. She sees the disgust behind them; the hatred of her and her kind mingles with the sick pleasure he is getting from her on her knees in front of him completely at his mercy.
Katara spits at him. There's still some blood in her mouth that she hasn't swallowed down yet and she bends it so that it hits him square in the face. "Never," she hisses in between her teeth. Then she laughs because they are fools if they think she can't take a little pain. This – while excruciating – is not even close to other tortures her own kind had inflicted upon her.
Zhao stands. The smile wipes away from his face, replaced by something cold and hard. He reaches up to wipe the spittle from his face and his eyes darken with irritation. Zhao strikes out at her fast as a cobra – his palm rubbing her own spit back in her face before he slaps her hard.
His hand is gripping her hair and he's yanking her head back so that she's forced to look up at him. His eyes are like ice; hers burn like fire.
"I will break you." He warns her. His control is slipping. Not only can Zhao feel it, but Katara can see it. And if she can see it then his crew can as well. He can't afford to look weak now… the waterbender cannot get the best of him after he failed to capture the Avatar when he was right there.
A smile snakes across her lips. "Run back to Ozai with your tail between your legs and tell him how you failed. You're better off killing me so that I won't send you and your crew to a watery grave."
Zhao stares at her. His grip tightens in her hair and she's sure she can feel the pull of him ripping it out. She refuses to even flinch. Pain is something that she can accept.
He pushes his hand against her head so that she looks down again when he lets go. The Captain moves around where the waterbender is tied up in between two poles. Her arms are outstretched, clasped in metal and her hands useless to summon up any sort of bending.
A smile crosses his own lips – sick, twisted at the corners – when he sees that her back is tensing. The fabric of her blue Water Tribe clothes are ripped and stained with blood from both the whipping and the earlier attack on the Water Tribe ship.
Her waterbending blood has already healed most of the lashes. All that's left is faint pink scars and dried blood.
Zhao steps forward and grips the neckline at the back of her Water Tribe robes. He pulls, Katara tensing and tugging away from his grip, and rips. A jagged tear goes down the center and he tosses the frayed ends to the sides. Now, her skin is exposed completely.
Katara feels the cool air of the sea blowing against her bare back and shivers. She's naturally used to the cold – she is from the Southern Poles, after all – but the blood speckled across her back and the healing skin's hypersensitivity to the elements amplifies the chill.
She wrenches at her metal clasps but they don't give way. Clenching her jaw again, Katara tilts her chin up and forward, bracing herself against the wooden floor for another round of lashing by spreading her knees out just a little. Her legs are starting to get a little sore.
"Pity," Zhao says from somewhere behind her. "I would have hoped that we would have to take care of you after this; but it looks like you are already doing that."
"I wouldn't have let any of you touch me," she retorts angrily and she means it. She silently dares any of the men to lay a hand on her. She will drown them before they can even blink; she will boil and freeze their blood as they scream in agony before she clenches her fist and makes their veins explode.
Zhao seems to ignore her attempt at fighting back with words. "We'll just have to try a little harder to mar that pretty skin of yours." He turns to look at the firebender solider that's been whipping her. "Stop when she is no longer able to heal herself."
He looks back at the waterbender just in time to see her entire body go stiff with a sharp inhale. That sickening smile spreads across his face and he steps away to allow the bender ample enough room paint her back with searing slashes and blood.
-/-
She's coiled up on a pallet in the cell when she first recognizes the efforts of her body trying to heal itself.
Three hours. It took the firebenders three hours of repeated, uninterrupted lashing before her body finally caved from exhaustion and could no longer heal.
She had collapsed against the chains after the first hour; didn't even bother holding back her screams after the second. Zhao had gotten what he wanted and she had passed out as soon as they had unchained her from the posts.
Katara winces as her body naturally tries to reach into her energy reserves. She hasn't been able to soak up the moon to restore herself and Zhao hasn't brought her any water or any other sort of liquid that she might be able to use to revitalize her body.
The moon is in the sky though. She can tell despite the fact that there's no window and it's dark in the cells deep within the ship. Katara can still feel the pull and it's almost painful that she isn't outside to soak it all in. When she was on the Water Tribe ship, she slept outside so that her body could absorb the moon's power.
Now all of that storage was depleted after a mere three hours on a Fire Nation ship.
She probably should be proud of herself – despite the fact that she is a little angry that she had given up on the deck earlier, she can't dismiss the fact that it took them three hours to wear her out and even then she hadn't said a word about Aang or Sokka or her dad's ships.
Still, the taste of a defeat is bitter in her mouth. Not only had she been captured but she had let them take away all of her bending energy. Katara lifts her hand to try to draw out some moisture from the air but she's so tired that her hand barely gets wet. She was almost defenseless now.
There's some energy left deep within her blood. She can feel that, at least. It was the only thing she could hold onto while she was tied between the posts. But she will only use that in a dire emergency. If she uses it now, she's not sure if she will be able to remain awake long enough to do any sort of damage to the ship or crew.
Katara struggles to sit up, wincing at the stiffness of her back and tries not to rip open the wounds as she does so. Her body may be low on energy but the healing in her blood has managed to scab over the wounds enough so that she doesn't have to worry about ripping them open if she is careful.
Her biggest concern is infection. She's been able to treat burn wounds well enough when she was on her own ship but now that she doesn't have a healer and her body isn't reliable at the moment, she's a little skeptical about how it's going to go. Especially since she's down in the dirty lower levels of Zhao's vessel. This place can't be that clean.
If her wounds do get infected then that's going to be a problem all on its own. Her body will focus its energy on clearing that out rather than building her strength back up again so that she can fight her way out of here.
She's still dressed in the pathetic remnants of her Water Tribe clothes. They're ripped, bloodied and her entire back is exposed except in the areas where the fabric has stuck to the blood. She's cold – chilled and her skin feels clammy and dirty. What she wants to do is take a nice shower to clean off the stickiness of blood but she knows Zhao will burn himself to death before allowing her to be that close to her source of power.
Katara starts playing with the end of her ragged braid. If she could just gather up the strength, she's sure that she can get out of here. Zhao is too easily controlled by his emotions and his failure at getting to Aang really messed him up. He's volatile, which makes him either really irrational or very dangerous. She hasn't really decided which it was yet.
Too bad Sokka wasn't here. He would be able to team up with her to really get into Zhao's head and then they would really have a chance to get out and go back to Aang so that –
Katara hears the sound of the cellar door opening and her hands freeze on her braid. She pauses, listening carefully and hears the sounds of several pairs of heavy boots on the steps. Carefully but as quickly as she can manage, Katara slides on the floor so that she's lying down again.
If they see that she's awake and well enough, they may give a repeat performance of earlier.
Someone has a fire in their hands. Katara lies on her side so that her exposed back doesn't touch the dirty floor but still tries to look down through the cell door to the outside. There are some shadows on the crates on the wall opposite her cell: four shapes, tall with Fire Nation topknots.
They step into her line of sight and she closes her eyes, feigning sleep. It's something that she's become good at. Otherwise, she would have been the one to swab the deck every morning rather than Sokka.
Katara hears a key being twisted and the door to her cell creaks open. Hands grip her arm and she's hauled up. Her eyes fly open and she instantly starts wiggling. She will not let them touch her –
She's backhanded across the face and she sags against the soldier holding her up.
Her legs start flying. She's kicking, bracing herself against the man who's still holding her and she fells his other hand grip her wrist as he pulls her backwards until the two are up against the wall.
"Don't touch me you –" She's snarling.
"Stop tribeswoman." The soldier behind her hisses into her ear but she keeps squirming. One soldier manages to catch her ankle – she's getting sluggish, fatigue making her eyes spot and she's already sweating – and she kicks another in the head before that ankle is latched onto as well.
Now's she held up completely by three firebenders. In a cell. With her clothes falling off her body. Her body is shaking from the exertion but that doesn't erase the scowl that's on her face and the heated warning in her eyes.
It takes a lot of energy to find a man's heart but she's desperate and –
They're walking out of the cell. Her body is comically held out between the three men. They hold her as if she weighs practically nothing but she can tell that her relentless fidgeting isn't making their job any easier.
"We're not going to touch you if that's what you're worried about." The soldier behind her says with an almost disgusted tone in his voice. Katara's almost insulted.
"You're touching me now," she reminds him and tries to wrench her wrists away from him. She would need to take out the two holding her legs first then the one behind her and the one that's in front of them. Maybe if she tries really hard she can do it.
He scoffs behind her. She kicks her legs and manages to push her boot into the chest plate of one of the soldiers.
Katara is a little worried that they're going to drop her on purpose as they walk up the steps. She's still not sure where they're taking her, and there's an uncomfortable feeling deep in the pit of her stomach that worries her. Surely they're not…
She gets her answer when they turn towards the back cabins rather than the front. She knows enough of the layout of the ship to know that's where Zhao is, though knowing that's where the soldiers are taking her isn't any more comforting.
Her legs are set on the ground but before she can start lashing out again, the man behind her cuffs her wrists with metal at the small of her back. She immediately starts tugging at them.
"If you don't behave, we'll cuff your ankles too," he warns her low in her ear and she jerks away from him.
When she shoots him a glare of her shoulder, he's smirking, clearly amused at her and she turns back around. If she could bend, that smile would have split his face clean in half. Who would be amused then?
But she can't bend. Katara needs to save her strength for the dire situations. Being taken to the crew was definitely one of them. Being taken to Zhao…well, she can take on man if she can get her hands on a weapon. He doesn't seem like the type of man who would rape her. He hates her too much.
Still, she isn't disillusioned. She's on a ship full of soldiers who could overtake her in a moment now that she is too tired to bend. Being a prisoner comes with perks like that. Katara's also from the Southern Water Tribe, a nation known for their shapely and beautiful women. She wasn't blind to their glances earlier. Now that her clothes are half-falling off and her bindings are the only thing really keeping her from being exposed, she isn't sure what the men are thinking.
Nor does she really want to know either. They can have their daydreams and fantasies. But if they so much as touch her…
Zhao's door is opening and the soldier behind her nudges her forward. Katara notices that he doesn't touch her back at all even though he could and she's a little grateful. Her skin is still oversensitive and she's had enough painful moments for the day.
The first thing that she notices when she's in the room is that Zhao isn't alone. There's a young man, maybe a year or two older than her seventeen years standing off to the side. When she comes in, his eyes don't automatically go to her but she knows that he's aware of her presence. He stays facing Zhao who's sitting behind his desk.
"If that isn't the Avatar that just came in, I'm not interested," the young man spits out. Zhao glares at him, and then looks back to Katara. She holds her head up high and straightens her back.
"I already told you, Prince Zuko. The Avatar –"
"Got. Away. Yes, I know of your incompetence. What I don't know is why you're bringing this prisoner to me when I instructed that I wanted to see the Avatar and the Avatar only."
"Your attempts at humiliating me are weak. You've been searching for the Avatar for as long as I have. Yet, I am the only one who has managed to take someone close to the Avatar." Zhao motions to Katara.
Prince Zuko finally looks at her and she meets his stare unflinchingly. She's not going to back down from the petulant man. Sure, she's not the Avatar by any means. But Katara knows her importance. This man – boy, child, whatever – is stupid for not understanding that at all. Zhao may have failed, but he isn't foolish. It was why he kept her alive.
Katara notices that the Prince could be handsome… if not for the scar that covers his left eye and the top of his left cheek. His hair isn't in a topknot and he's not dressed in royal robes. But there's haughtiness and self-assuredness that screams royal blood and an unpleasant taste fills her mouth.
Ozai's son.
"She barely looks alive," he notes, his gold-colored eyes washing over her form fleetingly. "What importance is she to the Avatar?"
"She's his girl."
"I am not." This time she's more than a little insulted. Aang and she were strictly platonic – there was nothing romantic and it was unnerving how many times people assumed differently.
The Prince quirks an eyebrow. "So they're close?"
"Obviously." Zhao stands and steps from behind the desk to walk towards her. Katara stands her ground but she draws herself to her full height, switching her attention from the idiotic Prince to the Captain before her. "The Avatar will be looking for her."
He reaches up to tuck loose stands of her hair behind her ear and she has to force herself to not jerk away.
"He won't." Katara says. "Aang won't fall for any trap that you try to set. You're better off throwing me over the side of the ship and keep trying – failing – to catch him."
"Is she a waterbender?" The Prince asks. "You should take her to the Rock if she is."
Instead of answering, Zhao grips the fabric of her clothes and makes another rip at her lower right hip. The skin etching sign for waterbenders is there plain as day in the light of the torches that illuminate the room. Her etching has always been a badge of honor – it's strictly a Water Tribe thing – and she naturally puffs out her chest a bit like Sokka does when he catches a fish.
"Barbarians," Zhao murmurs low and lets go of the fabric. Her etching is still exposed and the two men are still looking at it. "Marking up such beautiful skin."
Katara notices that the Prince's eye flicker from her scarred-over skin to Zhao.
"The Rock it is," the Prince says.
Zhao's head snaps to Zuko. "And give up our one advantage over the Avatar?"
The Prince shrugs and Katara wonders if that scar on his face messes with his brain. "She already said the Avatar won't come looking for her. What's the point of keeping her around?"
"Oh, Prince Zuko there are plenty of other reasons to keep someone like her around other than to be used as bait –"
"Lay one hand on me, Zhao, and I will make sure that you will never lay hands on another again," Katara hisses, anger flashing in her eyes. She will never, ever be used like that. It's not the worst thing that can happen. But still. Zhao – he disgusts her. If he so much as tried to do something like that, she would have no second thoughts or regrets about killing him in the most agonizing of ways.
Zhao gives her an amused look instead of replying to her.
"The Fire Lord would rather her be put in the prison. You cannot keep her here as a slave unless he allows it. You know how he is with female captives; if there is an interest in one, he'd rather see her for himself before he makes a decision."
"Yes, I know very well how the Fire Lord works, Prince. There is no need to try to educate me on the matter."
"Besides, from the look of her I'd say she wouldn't last more than a few more days. You don't take good care of your prisoners, do you Zhao? Just look at her."
Zhao stiffens at the insult. "An interrogation technique –"
"Did it work?"
The Captain pauses. Katara smiles.
"I didn't think so."
"How I deal with my captives is none of your concern." There's a new bitterness in Zhao's voice. Something about the Prince's accusations is setting him on edge. Maybe this Zuko isn't as much of an idiot as she originally thought. Actually, she quite likes –
"It is my concern when the captive is an enemy of the Fire Nation. I request that you hand her over to my ship so that I can insure that she makes it alive to the Rock so that her interrogations might actually have results."
– Never mind. She rather hates him.
"It was my crew that captured her. You just want to lure the Avatar for yourself by using her as bait!"
"Whether or not the prisoner is even close to the Avatar is up for debate. The Fire Lord would rather have the captive interrogated correctly and efficiently at the Rock before we try to lure the Avatar into a trap that could more than likely be a waste of time and possibility."
"She's my prisoner."
"Since you two clearly are not going to come to a compromise, might I suggest a third option? You two could preserve the peace and just let me go. I don't want to be the cause of such a large disagreement like this."
Katara swears that she sees the corner of the Prince's lips perk upwards for a scant second before the calm, stoic demeanor takes over again. "She's not just your prisoner, Captain. She's the Fire Nation's." The Prince pretends to ignore her comment.
Zhao steps directly in between her and the Prince. Katara's eyes narrow – she doesn't need to be protected like she's his property; but that's what he's doing. He's acting as if she really is his to deal with as she wishes. She supposes this is sort of correct – he did capture her and she is in his ship as a prisoner – but still. It's more than infuriating.
"You're not going to take the one chance I have at capturing the Avatar away from me," he hisses to the Prince. There's real malice in his voice and for once, Katara is actually a tad frightened at that.
"She isn't just your chance, Captain. She's the Fire Nation's –"
"I don't care. Where was the Fire Nation this afternoon? Where were they when I was able to track down the Southern Water Tribe ship and capture the Avatar's close friend? The Fire Nation is not responsible for this capture – I am. So it is my right and duty to deal with my captive as I see fit. It is my responsibility to the crown to track down the Avatar. I will do so with the help and cooperation of my prisoner."
Katara inches back a step.
Prince Zuko is quiet for once. Katara wonders if he's as worried about Zhao's temperament as she is. There is nothing on this world more frightening than a man who is so dedicated to his duty that it drives him mad. She's seen it happen before. It rarely ends in happiness.
"Very well." The Prince says but there's something about that that strikes her odd. He's not really giving up even though it sounds like he is… "Look after your captive, Captain. I hope that she is able to survive your interrogations long enough to give you the information that you want."
He walks briskly past her, his eyes flickering to hers for the briefest of moments and she sees something strange in them. It's like what was in his words. The Prince sounds like he's giving up but she can see and hear that he really isn't.
Katara's alone with Zhao. His back is still to her. He's stiff, large fists tightly clenched at his sides and she can see that he's staring at the wall in front of him. She's tried to shut down all of her waterbending abilities to conserve strength so she can't tell how fast his heart his beating or how quickly his heated blood is rushing through his body.
Then again, she isn't too sure that she needs waterbending in order to be able to figure that out.
There are a few tense, awkward moments of Katara waiting for Zhao to turn around and… dismiss her or something. She's just staring at him and making notes of his posture – stiff, hardened and he's wearing his anger on his body like he had earlier on the deck. He really should try to work on that.
When he does turn around though, Katara can't help but flinch. His eyes are as angry as his body and they're so dark even though they should be gold. It doesn't take him but a single step and an outstretched hand to grab at her. She can't even dig her heels to slow herself down as he hauls her up against his body, hand tightening around her throat and her eyes widen.
His nails are digging into the sides of her neck and she's sure that he's going to kill her as she gasps for breath – This wasn't how she was supposed to die. She's a warrior. She shouldn't die with her hands behind her back with a man's hand around her throat – he's squeezing – and she can't breathe and it hurts and she's –
– Zhao lets go and she drops onto the floor onto her knees. She almost falls forward completely but she manages to catch herself as she sucks in delicious, cool air. Her chest racks with coughs from the sudden intake and her eyes are burning with tears.
She can feel him staring down at her. He likes this. Seeing her kneeled in front of him. But he's a coward. Both times that he's hurt her have been with her hands tied and when she can't even fight back. If she wasn't restrained when he attacked her, even the Spirits wouldn't be able to save him.
He shifts and lowers himself down so that he can look her in the eyes. His hand grips her chin tightly and he yanks her head up. She coughs purposefully in his face. Zhao doesn't even flinch.
"You will tell me where the Avatar is hiding one way or another, waterbender. You have the power to make it as painless as possible. Just know that no matter what you do, I will get the secrets out of you."
Katara doesn't have to try very hard to muster up the hate that shows through her eyes. "You're just going to have to kill me, Zhao. I'm not telling you anything."
"Oh I believe you will. I can be very persuasive when I need to be." A sick smile spreads across his face. "What you experienced this afternoon? That was only to wear you down. It was only the beginning. I have more than a few tricks up my sleeve."
"Good. Because I have a few tricks of my own to share."
He slaps her. Katara's head whips to the side and her loose hair falls in her face as she sucks in a breath. She sort of expected it, but that doesn't stop the pain blossoming at her cheek even though she smiles a little in victory. She got to him.
"This will be a lot easier if you just cooperated."
Katara flips the hair out of her face a she looks back at him. "You could just cooperate with me and let me go. I'm not telling you anything and quite frankly, I'm getting a little tired of having to explain that every time we meet."
Zhao exhales harshly through his nose. She anticipates another slap but he surprises her by standing. She prepares herself for a kick, but again, he moves away to sit behind his desk again. Katara gets a foot underneath her and rises as well with some difficulty but she manages it.
The guard that's been tucked away into the corner this entire time comes forward. She jumps a little when he grabs her by the arm but she lets him tug her around and back towards the door.
Zhao's door closes behind them and she lets herself take in a deep breath. If the guard notices, he doesn't point it out and she doesn't even put up a fight as he takes her back down to her familiar cell. Her metal clasps are taken off before she's put inside her cage. She immediately begins rubbing at her sore wrists as she kneels down on the pallet.
The guard locks the door and she falls back, lying on the metal floor with only the thin, worn and dirty pallet to provide some cushion. Katara waits for a few seconds, then sits up and looks at the guard who is still standing at her cell door.
"You really should make this easier on yourself," he says. "If you cooperate… Zhao might treat you better. You're only causing yourself more harm by prolonging the inevitable."
Katara rolls her eyes and lies back down. "Why do you care, firebender? Shouldn't you be enjoying my pain?"
"I enjoy no pain. Especially pain that could be avoided."
She has nothing to say to that so she doesn't speak.
"I'm just saying… You haven't seen Zhao when he's interrogating someone. I have. Maybe you should take my advice." He's gone then and she blinks into the darkness.
No. She will never talk. Not to Zhao – not to anyone who will harm Aang or her other friends.
She will die first.